Now that Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives, the American people have to ask themselves a very important question: How bad do they want to see Donald Trump’s tax returns?

Trump made it very clear last week that he isn’t going to turn them over without a fight. And he didn’t stop there. He also threatened to hold the nation hostage if the Democrats start investigating him.

Certainly, Trump’s tax returns aren’t the only thing Democrats could start nosing around on, nor are they the most important. There are lots of possibilities, from looking into potential ethics violations to holding an impeachment hearing.

Now that Jeff Sessions has been ousted as attorney general, even special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election likely is in jeopardy. Democrats could be the only ones standing who can make sure that any information Mueller has uncovered thus far isn’t swept under the rug.

Trump has his own ideas, though. When it comes to oversight, he’s demanding that Democrats allow him to coast along like he did when Republicans were in charge. Otherwise, he says he’ll shut down the government and blame it on the Democrats.

The voters who turned out en masse for Tuesday’s midterm elections would never stand for a continuation of the status quo. They’re demanding accountability, and if Democrats want to maintain control, they’d better not forget it.

That leaves only one possible scenario for the next two years — political gridlock. We’ve seen it before, and it isn’t pretty.

The day after the election, you would have thought there would have been some sincere talk about bringing the country together. A few people mentioned it, but it was obviously just lip service.

In a couple of months, probably even before then, any chatter about passing bipartisan legislation on things like prescription drugs and infrastructure will completely disappear.

For the next two years, no substantive legislation will make it through both houses of Congress to become law. No matter how much we might long for compromise, things just don’t work like that in Washington anymore.

Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who is expected to become House speaker in January, said this is a “new day” and things will be different in Washington from here on in.

And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued his own warning from the Republicans that they’ve got Trump’s back if the Democrats insist on “presidential harassment.”

But what the Republicans might consider to be harassment, Democrats will insist is their “constitutional responsibility to have oversight,” as Pelosi put it.

There’s still a lot of anger among a large segment of Americans who feel as though Trump has been able to get away with too much under total Republican rule.

They are convinced that there’s a treasure trove of corruption just waiting to be uncovered. They’d bet money on some dark financial dealings lurking in his tax returns. And who knows what kind of shaky deals his companies are involved in with Russia or China?

Some people will not be satisfied unless the House impeaches Trump, which, as we learned from Bill Clinton, isn’t enough to kick a president out of office. That power rests with the Republican-controlled Senate, and it would take Richard Nixon-type revelations for Republicans to do it. Maybe that wouldn’t even be enough for McConnell and his crew.

What we also learned on Tuesday is that there are still a lot of Trump supporters who would stand by the president no matter what. And there are still a lot of Republican politicians who know they cannot keep their jobs unless Trump gives his followers permission to vote for them.

That leaves us with what to do about those tax returns.

Some high-ranking Democrats already have said they will use their new power to subpoena Trump’s tax returns, which he refused to release during his presidential campaign and continues to keep shrouded in secrecy.

Pelosi told the San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday that going after Trump’s tax returns is "one of the first things we'd do” and that it is “the easiest in the world.”

That’s exactly what Trump doesn’t want. If the Democrats start investigating him, he warned, he’s going to sic the Republican Senate on them.

Wednesday morning, he tweeted this: “If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!”

And he insists that he’s better at playing this “game” than Democrats are.

We’d might as well brace ourselves for two more years of ugly fights that neither Democrats nor Republicans can win.

As always, the American people will be the biggest losers. But at least, we’ll have those tax returns.